Infrastructure is on
everyone’s mind these days.
How do we define
infrastructure?
How much should we spend?
How do we pay for it?
These are some of the many
questions that are on people’s minds, but the biggest question is, can
Republicans and Democrats actually work together and cut a bipartisan
infrastructure deal?
This past week proves that
the answer is a resounding yes.
Last Thursday, the Senate
passed the bipartisan Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of
2021 (DWWIA).
As the top Republican—also
known as the Ranking Member—of the Environment and Public Works (EPW)
Committee, I worked closely with Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) to craft this
meaningful legislation that addresses our country’s aging drinking water and
wastewater systems.
DWWIA authorizes more than
$35 billion for water resource development projects across the country with a
focus on upgrading aging infrastructure.
We worked to ensure this bill
addresses the emerging threats of extreme weather events—including those
resulting from climate change and cybersecurity vulnerabilities—invests in
innovative technologies, and provides assistance to marginalized communities.
All of these things together
help communities keep their water safe and clean.
Something I’m particularly
proud of is how this bill provides flexibility so both rural and urban areas
can best address their needs.
The most significant
investments are in the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds –
otherwise known as SRFs.
The SRFs maximize authority
for the states to determine how best to address drinking and wastewater
challenges, utilizing a revolving loan fund to facilitate additional future
investments.
For rural states like West
Virginia, the bill offers several solutions to their unique water challenges:
First, the bill invests $50
million for those currently served by intractable water systems.
These are systems that
service fewer than 1,000 people and have typically been abandoned by the
operator.
Towns in the southern
coalfields of West Virginia like those in McDowell County have historically
struggled with this.
Since many of these
households cannot connect to municipal water systems in an economic or
technically feasible way, the funding will go to a grant program to install
environmentally-sound decentralized wastewater systems.
So, with new septic tanks
installed, this grant program will improve quality of life and addresses public
health and environmental concerns about straight piping waste into rivers and
streams.
Additionally, infrastructure
resiliency and sustainability is also a priority in this bill.
In rural areas especially,
some of these pipes are nearly one hundred years old.
Small towns often don’t have
the revenues to spend on expensive drinking water and wastewater infrastructure
upgrades.
That’s why this legislation
creates grants for small public water systems to replace components, identify
and prevent leaks, and install meters.
Reports have shown that only one quarter of the
water West Virginia water systems pay to have treated and pumped ever even
reaches a faucet.
Only
one quarter!
Water
is such a precious resource, and wasting that much of it because of leaky pipes
and faulty infrastructure is unacceptable.
In
addition, this program allows towns like Parkersburg or Martinsburg to use
funds to address PFAS contamination.
I’m
hopeful this new grant program will address that issue in West Virginia and
also in other states with similar issues.
Another aspect of this bill
that I’m especially proud of is the Water Infrastructure and Workforce
Investment grant program.
Ensuring a sufficient and
sustainable water workforce is a vital piece of resilience that sometimes gets
forgotten.
Unfortunately, a large
portion of the men and women who work in our water treatment facilities are
getting older and retiring.
That’s why we need to make
sure we have the next generation of water workers ready.
This bill reauthorizes and
increases funding authorized for a program I created that helps water systems
grow their workforce through apprenticeships, training programs, and retention
efforts.
This program has been
extremely popular with water systems around the country, and Congress has
recognized this by funding it beyond the authorization level.
The reform in this bill will
make possible additional investments to address the shortfall in our water
workforce.
While water infrastructure
investments are critical to ensuring we’re not wasting water and our water is
clean, it’s also critical from an economic development perspective.
Berkeley County made huge
investments into their water infrastructure system to ensure the system could
handle the volume of water the local Proctor and Gamble plant needed.
With the upgraded water
system, P&G was able to operate more efficiently and even expand.
That means more jobs.
That kind of opportunity
needs to be available everywhere in West Virginia and around the country.
DWWIA passed unanimously out
of the EPW Committee. And just last week, it passed the Senate by a vote of
89-2.
Conservatives, moderates, and
liberals all came together on this.
This bill is proof that we
can work together on infrastructure.
This is a bipartisan,
responsible, and meaningful investment.
We’re taking care of pipes.
We’re looking out for our
environment.
And, we’re putting special
emphasis on helping rural and disadvantaged communities.
This is a bipartisan bill to
be proud of, and I hope we continue in this spirit moving forward with other
infrastructure priorities like surface transportation.
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